uneven odds (or were we broken right from the start?)
by DaughterOfPoseidon333
Summary: "darkness exists to make light truly count" or "He couldn't remember anything, but he could remember dying." A Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes character study one-shot


**On my long drive back out to school I was hit with some major Bucky Barnes feels and, well, this is the result. Just a little character study piece. I apologize in advance for the sadness and the angst and all that.**

 **Title is taken from two Sleeping At Last songs:** _ **Uneven Odds**_ **and** _ **Bad Blood.**_ **I highly recommend listening to them, as well as** _ **Mercury**_ **and** _ **Mars**_ **, also by Sleeping At Last. (And seriously, this is like the third fic that I've used their stuff in my titles. I think I have a problem. I just can't help it. Their stuff is just so good).**

 **Anyway, I don't own anything!**

 **Enjoy!**

 **-:-**

He couldn't remember anything but he could remember dying.

He could remember the ache in his (human) fingers, right before all he could see was the broken face and outstretched hand of the red, white, and blue dressed man. The man, shouting his name as he fell.

 _I knew him._

It was the fall and that outstretched hand and his dying scream being torn from his mouth.

Then it was a blur.

All white and bloodied snow and men in thick jackets speaking in even thicker accents. A man in glasses, whispering his name. _His name…Bucky…Sergeant Barnes….his name…what was his name?_

 _You are to be the new fist of Hydra._

 _Hydra…Hydra…_

New fist of Hydra…a fist…a hand… _his_ hand…. _gone._ Replaced…

 _Just like his memory._

Lost somewhere in the fall and the snow.

Out of reach.

Just like that outstretched hand.

 _So close…so close…_

-:-

"What's your name?"

Somewhere….somewhere from the blur of his mind…. _James. My name is James. Barnes, James Buchanan. 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan. 32557038. BarnesJamesBuchanan32557038. I am James and he is…he is…he (was?) is Steve. He is Steve._

A quick backhand across the cheek is enough to make him forget what he happened to remember.

"What is your name?"

"I have no name." No hesitation in spilling the words past his stiff lips. A flash of something….emotion…yeah, that was the word. A flash of emotion and he realized he was surprised he remembered how to speak at all.

"What is your name?"

A pause. "The Winter Soldier."

Another slap for speaking too softly.

"What is your name?"

"The Winter Soldier."

"You know your mission." It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"Good. Report back in 72 hours."

A nod. A clench of his metal hand.

 _My name…my name…his name is Steve._

-:-

They poke him and prod him. They make him scream.

They take better care of that metal arm than they do of the body attached to it.

He thinks to tell them all this but he's too busy screaming.

They make him remember ( _who they are and what they will do_ ). They make him forget ( _who he is and what he has done_ ).

They give him a mask (a muzzle) and arm him to the teeth. The only information in his head is only what's needed to put another bullet in someone's brain. They made him forget how he even knew how to use a gun in the first place. It shouldn't be a comfort how snugly his finger fits against the trigger, how powerful he feels with his target lined up in the scope.

Maybe he'll turn his gun on them one day.

Maybe he'll just turn it on himself instead.

( _They make him forget that thought, too_ ).

-:-

"Bucky?"

"Who the hell is Bucky?" The words fall quickly, easily from his uncovered mouth. A reflex. But even as he raises his gun to end the life of the man on the bridge, something snaps into place in his otherwise empty mind. A different reflex. A different time...

 _Bucky. Bucky…_

 _My name is…my name is…_

 _His name…his name is…_

The broken face and that outstretched hand. Red, white, and blue. The uniform. The shield. The man on the bridge. _The man on the bridge…_ That outstretched hand…

 _I knew him._

-:-

 _I knew him. I knew him. I knew him._

 _IknewhimIknewhimIknewhimIknewhimIknewhimIknewhimIknewhimIknewhimIknewhimIknewhimIknewhimIknewhimIknewhimIknewhimIknewhimIknewhimIknewhim._

 _I knew him._

 _-:-_

They made him forget the man on the bridge.

He should have kept his mouth shut.

They muzzled him for a reason.

 _But I knew him._

And he tells them so.

He doesn't tell them that the man on the bridge called him Bucky back then, before the fall with that outstretched hand. Doesn't tell them about the cold or the blood in the snow or about the man with the glasses. Doesn't tell them about the man on the bridge calling him Bucky now, doesn't tell them that his name isn't Winter Soldier.

He only tells him that he knew the man on the bridge.

 _I knew him…his name is…his name is…his name is…Steve._

 _His name is Steve._

 _And he was Bucky. He was Bucky._

But they made him scream.

They made him forget.

-:-

He fought the man from the bridge.

He made him bleed.

And still...and still the man wouldn't fight back enough to save his own life.

But he was the Winter Soldier. The man from the bridge was his mission. And he would kill him. He would kill him. He would…he would…

He pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. Three times. He couldn't stop. More red for the red, white, and blue uniform.

Even when the vessel started to fall apart around them and he fought and screamed and struggled against the weight of the metal rafter, the man from the bridge did not run. He did not fight. He did not kill. The man from the bridge saved him.

He was the Winter Soldier. He had made the man bleed. He would kill him. He would…he would do it. It would be so easy now. The man from the bridge ( _the man from the train_ ), the man in red, white, and blue ( _with the outstretched hand and tears in his eyes_ ), the man would die. He would—

"You know me." Bleeding. Breathless.

"No I don't!" a single punch, words out of his mouth before he could think about them.

"Bucky, you've known me your whole life."

Another punch and that—and that _name. Bucky. That wasn't his name, that wasn't his name!_

 _My name is…my name is…_

"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes."

"Shut up!" another punch. _No! Nonononononononononononono. Barnes…32…325….Barnes...Bucky….my name is….mynameismynameismynameis…._

First the helmet. "I'm not going to fight you."

Then the shield. Redwhiteandblue going down, down, down. Falling, falling, falling…

 _The fall. White and snow and blood and nothing._

 _And outstretched hand and redwhiteandblue._

 _My name is…my name is…._

"You're my friend."

 _No!_

A second later and the man is underneath him, completely at his mercy. He growls like the dog they kept muzzled. "You're my mission."

He raises his hand ( _the metal flashes bright, bright like the blood against the snow_ ). He brings that fist down ( _you are to be the new fist of Hydra_ ). He brings the fist down again and again and again.

"You're—" another punch, "my—" he breaks the fragile skin with his unbreakable hand, "mission!"

He raises that bloody, god-awful fist again, ready to finish it. Ready to finish his mission. This was his mission. He failed once. He would not fail again. He would kill him. He would—

"Then finish it." A broken breath. "'Cause I'm with you till the end of the line."

Words. They should've just been words.

But they were a bullet ( _a spear, a dagger, an explosion in his mind, sharp and unyielding and so, so,_ so clear). It wasn't much. But it was enough. Enough for a crack to form in the dam that blocked his mind ( _for how long, he couldn't remember because they made him forget_ ). A crack big enough to let one memory slip through.

 _"I can get by on my own, Buck."_

 _"The thing is, you don't have to. I'm with you till the end of the line, pal."_

The Helicarrier broke. Metal and glass and wires all screaming ( _but not loud enough to stop the screaming in his head_ ).

The man in red, white, and blue fell.

His own metal hand was outstretched.

Opposite. He was looking down and the man was looking up.

His body shook ( _his body that had been a prison and a cage and nothing but cold and metal for so, so long shook and shook and shook apart and fell like the man and the metal and the glass_ ).

And from the mess that was his mind and his heart and his body and his soul, he remembered the most important thing they had tried to make him forget.

 _His name is Steve._

 _And I know him._

 **-:-**

 **Thanks for reading!**

 **Let me know if you want me to do any other character study pieces!**

 **-DaughterOfPoseidon333**


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